Hi guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on ForgottenWeapons.com.
I'm Ian McCollum, and today we are out at the range
doing the great Serbian DMR challenge. I have here
a Yugoslav M76 rifle and a Yugoslav M91 rifle.
Now the M76 here is actually a parts kit built on
an American receiver, unfortunately, by Century Arms,
so we'll see if it runs mostly reliably today.
The M91 I have is one of the very recently imported M91s,
courtesy of Zastava USA.
We've got the original proper scopes on both of them. They're both 4x power scopes.
I've got a couple of 10 round mags for each.
We are going to do some shooting at [200] yards and just see what happens.
So I'm going to start with a 10 round group out of each rifle.
Then we'll go up and compare them, and just see what the handling feels like
shooting both of these rifles side by side and back to back.
Now I have both of these rifles set to gas setting 2, which should run them both
and that's in the interests of fairness for handling.
The M76 does not have a bipod, so I'm shooting it off a bag.
And I'll just do the same with the M91,
even though it does have a piece of Picatinny rail on the bottom of the handguard.
10 rounds.
(Bit of a nose dive here.)
Alright, and we are out. That's 10 rounds in the M76 which, as it does, has jammed the magazine follower
down into the body of the magazine, because ...
I don't know why they couldn't design a follower that didn't do that. They didn't. So.
I really like the handling on the M76. I really wish it was a little more reliable.
There are a lot of issues that come up around these American made receivers for these guns,
magazine placement, magazine height.
Some of that appears to be affecting this one, and it's kind of a crapshoot if you buy one of these guns
(and they haven't been making these for many years now), but if you buy one or bought one,
it's kind of a crapshoot whether you get one that works reliably or not.
So, there's that. Let's go on to the M91.
Alright. Gas system 2 on this one as well. 10 rounds.
The scope on this guy is offset a little bit to the left which is annoying,
but it can be worked around. The M76 scope is centred right over the bore.
We also have a pistol grip stock on this, this is how it was actually originally manufactured.
... A thumbhole stock, I'm sorry. I prefer a pistol grip stock.
... Here we go.
Alright, so this was also set to gas system 2.
I have bumped it down, Zastava recommends setting 3 for the first 200 rounds.
I haven't actually quite fired 200 through it yet, so I might have done that a little bit early.
I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt on that one malfunction early on in the magazine.
All it did was lock open early, just pop the ... bolt handle back and it closed and ran.
So, let's go ahead and take a look at those two groups and see how the two rifles did.
Alright, let's start with our M76. I was aiming right here, so zero is pretty good.
We've got a bit of a wide,
a wide horizontal spread there. But 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10, not bad.
That is 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, like a 6 inch wide spread, but only about an inch and a half vertical.
Now the M91.
Argh, ooo, sharp rocks.
I'm not sure what caused this, but that's just a tear in the paper, so we can ignore that.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 ...
don't have a 10.
I don't think any of these are doubles, they don't look like doubles on the back. So I may have pulled one off.
But otherwise almost identical size groupings. This one's a little bit narrower but a little bit taller. So
both rifles ... I suppose it shouldn't come as that much of a surprise.
They are both scaled up AKs made by the same factory. You get about the same performance out of both.
Yeah.
So one thing I forgot to mention, I'm using basically the same ammunition in both guns.
We have PPU 8mm Mauser 198 grain for the ... M76, and PPU match 182 grain 54 rimmed for the M91.
So, shouldn't be any difference in ammunition performance between the two.
Not any difference in my shooting ability between the two.
What you're seeing is either the limits of the rifle, or the limits of me as a shooter.
And I can't help you on which of those two you're actually getting.
But my assessment after doing this (after having put ammo beyond just this video through both of these), is
I like the M76 better as a design. I really prefer the pistol grip over the thumbhole stock on the M91.
I prefer the in-line scope. This rifle is a little bit heavier. I wish it had a bipod.
But in just overall handling I really like the M76.
Now the problem is you can't really get a reliable one unless you're willing to spend the money
to get one of the small number, and I think we're talking less than 200 early Mitchell imports.
The M91 shoots basically exactly as well. No actual difference in shooting,
despite the fact that I don't like the handling quite as much.
I don't like the fact that on the M91 the scope is offset to the left of the bore.
I do like the fact that it's got this bit of Picatinny that you can put a bipod on.
It's much easier to adjust the gas system on.
... The practical matter is if you want one of these guns for shooting, either competitive
or even just recreational shooting, really the M91 is your obvious choice.
Because you can't reliably count on one of the American made M76 kit guns to work.
I've three magazines that I've used in this, all three of them have had issues. And multiple gas settings have had issues.
I think it's just a finicky gun based on problems in the receiver.
So there are some gunsmiths out there who can fix that sort of stuff,
but that's a relatively expensive, time-consuming and complicated process to try and get into.
So if you want a Serbian DMR rifle to actually go out and shoot in a practical manner,
the M91 is really kind of the default choice.
So, I wish we could import proper fully Zastava-built M76s again, but until that happens.
And I don't want to take that as too much denigration of the M91, because
it is still a rifle very much in the vein of the PSL, the Dragunov, almost, not quite.
It doesn't have the mechanical improvements that the Dragunov does.
The Dragunov is a totally different mechanical system that was brilliantly designed.
But this is absolutely a very capable rifle for what it's intended for.
Anyway, hopefully you guys enjoyed the video. Thank you very much for watching.
Thanks for Zastava USA for the use of their M91. The M76 is my own.
[ sub by sk cn2 ]